Paying the Piper
by Cascade Waters
Summary: Oneshot Dean gets to answer to John for his choices in 'Faith.' WARNING: Contains non-sexual spanking. Don't like, don't read.


Paying the Piper

Firechild

Fandom: Supernatural

Rated: PG-13

Genre: famfic, angst, missing scene

Spoilers: Faith

Warnings: This story contains the spanking of a young man by his worried father. It is non-sexual discipline. If this offends you, please hit the 'back' button now.

Disclaimer:I own about 14 rolaids and a bag of Ritz mini-wiches. If you really want to sue me for peanut butter peppermint crumbs, be my guest, but I don't own any of these characters, nor am I profiting from this.

A/N: This is an answer to Uni's Dean Goes Down challenge, and a sort of follow-up to the events in Faith….

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"Dad, what the h-- What are you doing! Dad, stop, please!" Dean's frantic sputtering went completely unheeded as he found himself slung unceremoniously over his father's shoulder. He tried squirming, but it accomplished nothing. He thought of kicking, but mercifully his better judgment cued up and stopped him.

John Winchester was nothing if not dedicated and self-disciplined, and having resolved himself to his plan of action, he didn't bat an eyelash at his son's struggles. He simply crossed to the back of the small rental house, opened a door without knocking, and turned to settle himself on the end of the bed in Sam's room. His younger son, who had been told to wait for his father's return but hadn't been expecting quite this entrance, stood from the desk chair where he had been coordinating maps. His jaw hung open at the sight before him. At that moment, he didn't think his father could surprise him any more than he just had.

He was slightly mistaken.

As soon as he'd taken a seat on the bed, John reached up with both hands and swung his elder son down off of his shoulder--only to string the young man face-down over his knees.

John had been in the business of risk for far too long to be easily caught off-guard; he knew that in order for this to work, he had to establish his power over the situation and then hold onto it. With that in mind, he anticipated Dean's movements and managed to grab both of his son's wrists in one hand and anchor them at the small of Dean's back. He used just enough force to effectively anchor the young man, as well, while he used his free hand to grasp the elastic waistband of his son's sweatpants and tug them down to the boy's knees. Dean began to fight again as it dawned on him what his father was proposing to do, but it was Sam's gasp from the desk area that had Dean twisting and writhing in a bid to get free.

Unfortunately for him, his father was not only prepared for the fight, but also still a bit stronger than Dean. John supposed that when this was over, that would really rankle with his son. But then, it had been Dean's choices that had landed him in this position, so John wasn't inclined to feel overly sympathetic just now.

The first curse brought the first swat, over the black jockey shorts that were, after all, surprisingly little protection in this kind of situation. The more Dean fought and cursed and kicked, the more swats landed, the more he heard the same stern command to stop fighting, and the more it was brought home to him how serious his father was about actually doing this to him. "Oh, I so cannot believe this is happening! Dad, can--argh!--can't we just talk about… whatever this is?" His answer was another swat, the third in a row aimed just below his tailbone. Dean continued to fight, grunt, wheedle, and try to pretend that he was only irritated and not actually in increasing pain, and his father continued to swat out one avenue of resistance, only to have another rise up in its place, knowing that the only choice he could leave his son to make for himself was when to surrender and let this play out. He thought it a little ironic that he hadn't intended to lay any swats over the shorts, and that if Dean had chosen to submit to him or even just to lay rigid, they might be nearly done. As it was, this process was going to involve more time, and more pain, than he'd hoped.

For his part, Dean couldn't understand why he wasn't able to free himself, or even why this was happening. It had been… well, okay, maybe not that many years, but still, it had been a decent amount of time since he'd been sp-sp-spa--yeah, since this had happened to him, and, well, one could say he bore slightly more than philosophical objections to being reacquainted with the concept. He was almost 27 years old, for crying out loud! And for this to be happening in front of Sam, well, that was just way over the top. So the more he fought his father and fought the need to respond to the pain, the more he tried to reason with his dad to stop. When reasoning didn't work, he decided he wasn't above a little well-timed pleading--manfully stated, of course--and when that failed to help him, he even tried groveling. "Dad, look--urgh--I d--ssss--don't know what you think I did, but believe me--gah!--believe me, I am so unbelievably sorry, and I will n--ah--never do it again!"

Hating to admit that he was tiring, Dean took a couple of seconds to breathe and to gauge the effect of his apology.

It was just not his day.

All he got from John was, "Oh, you're not sorry now, kid, but you're gonna be."

When Dean felt his father's fingers on his waistband for about the fifth time, he discovered that he had twisted and kicked just a bit too late this time, and he gave in to the urge to swear as he tried to squirm enough to keep his father from doing the heretofore unthinkable. Predictably enough, this got him more swats and commands to stop, with the same maddening sting and the same maddening tone, until Dean let loose with something in Latin.

John stopped moving for a moment, not allowing Dean a chance to escape but letting him realize that his father had gone still. Eyes wide, eyebrows up, tone incredulous, John leaned a bit closer to his son's head and said, "Did you just try to… exorcise me?"

Dean perked up just a little, raising his back and turning to peer at his father. His customary sarcasm was mingled with hope. "Did it work?"

John heard Sam slap a hand over his mouth, but his attention was focused solely on Dean. He blinked a few times and shook his head with a certain amount of respect for his son's sheer brass; he also took advantage of the moment of distraction to give the shorts a good yank, revealing skin already dark pink. Dean's eyes widened and he started fighting again, this time trying for a kick to his father's ankle, all the while cursing and yelling for Sam to leave. When he saw that his brother was rooted to the spot, he tossed a particularly vicious name at him. What he hadn't considered was that John, for all his favoring of Dean, could still be rather protective of his younger son.

"Enough!" Both boys jumped at the verbal crack of thunder. John clamped Dean's thighs between his own and squeezed the young man's wrists together, using the surprise and added discomfort as object lessons as he leaned down and hissed through his teeth, "No, Dean! I'm the dad! You don't get to be in charge when I'm here. And you don't get to tell your brother where to be, not until you've answered for your own bad choices!"

"What? What are you talking about?" Dean had to grit his teeth to push down the distress, but the sinking in his stomach was another matter.

John's tone became conversational, laced with acid. "Oh, I don't know, how about we start with you leaving the hospital against doctors' orders, with a damaged heart and none of the medication that would have been your only chance if your heart had given out? Or how about those two orderlies you knocked cold to clear your path, or the little candy striper you locked in a closet, or the blood you stole from the lab and splattered all over one of the elevators to make a diversion and force some poor schmuck to go through who knows how much hassle, just so that you could cover your rear while you did something that you had to know was beyond stupid?" John let out a mirthless chuckle. "Maybe they should all be here to see this, too. Oh, and let's not forget hitchhiking in the middle of the night in winter in a strange place, with the aforementioned weak heart and no one knowing where you were for over an hour!" He leaned even closer and snarled, "No, Dean, enough arguing, it's time to pay the piper. I can't do anything about the others, but Sam gets to be here. He gets to see what happens when you act like a stupid kid!"

With that, he sat up, released his son's wrists and legs, and went to work in silence, turning every inch of Dean's bottom a dark, hot red, ignoring the attempts to squirm and the involuntary kicking and the little sounds of distress that Dean couldn't contain. When he went back to pay special attention to that area near the top and then more in the most sensitive area just above the tops of his thighs, slowing the swats, John took a deep breath and spoke sadly over the sound of skin striking skin, "Do you have any idea what it would do to me if I lost you like that, to some stupid childish arrogance? Do you have any idea what it would have done to Sam, to not know you were in trouble until someone called to say they'd found you dead in the road? Or for him to find you dead or dying and try to save you and not know that it wouldn't matter what he did because you hadn't taken your medicine? Do you have any idea what it would be like for him to live with that, to have to call me and tell me that he failed to save you and to be all alone with that? Maybe you should have thought about that before you threw your little walking fit."

He felt the moment Dean's resistance shattered, felt the fight bleed out of him as the young man went mostly limp, shaking his head. John suspected, and Sam could see, Dean's right hand covering his eyes and most of the rest of his face while his left hand, which had been braced against the floor, went boneless. Sam wondered briefly how Dean could trust their father not to let him overbalance and fall, but Dean didn't move despite the loss of the extra support.

John had stilled his own burning right hand before he'd finished his last sentence, and after a moment of flexing and squeezing it, he laid it on his son's lower back and began to rub in slow, meandering strokes. Except for the hitching gasps that signified Dean sobbing quietly behind his hand, the room was quiet for several long minutes. When the gasps were coming less frequently, John slipped his left hand under his son's chest, gripped the young man's left bicep with his right hand, and gently tugged upward. Dean came up without a struggle, but he kept his head as low as possible and turned his face away from his family.

John helped him to his feet and then stood to face him, tipping Dean's chin up with a knuckle to make sure the boy was really okay, and then drawing his son close and tucking him into his shoulder. He looped his arms around the boy's shoulders, feeling him tremble as Dean raised his hands to rest tentatively on his father's back.

It occured to Dean in some faint sector of his consciousness to wonder just how his father had learned about what he'd done. It couldn't have been Sam because his brother hadn't known most of that. Dean thought he might want to know, but he couldn't find the energy to care just at this moment. He couldn't find the energy to speak or to try to stop the flood of tears. He was grateful for his father's solid strength and gentle touch as the darkness finally began to close in.

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"Hey."

Dean squeezed his eyes shut again, trying to pretend he was still asleep and hadn't heard his brother's voice, seen him sitting there in the chair watching him. Watching him sleep. Watching him wake up. Watching him wince and bite back a groan. So much for convincing himself that it had all been a terrible, possibly tequila-induced dream.

"Hey." He gave up and groaned, rubbing his eyes and the bridge of his nose. "'Sup?"

"Not a lot. Just… sitting here, uh, looking through some… stuff."

"Uh huh."

"You okay?"

"Uh huh."

Sam leaned forward in the chair, resting his elbows on his knees and lacing his fingers under his chin. He wondered if his brother realized he'd been asleep, facedown, in Sam's bed for the past three hours.

"So, Dean, uh…"

"Save your breath, Sam. Do us both a favor and just… don't say it."

"Say what."

Dean opened one eye and shot his brother the most piercing glare he could manage around the swelling and grit in his eyes. "Anything. To anyone. Ever."

Sam dropped his head in a wry nod, grinning a little. "Got ya."

They were quiet for a bit, then Dean saw an odd light come into his brother's eyes. "Dean, wh--" He was interrupted by their father's voice calling for him from across the house.

Sam cocked his head toward the door, then turned back, opening his mouth to try to get the rest of his question out. This time he didn't manage to speak before the call came again, more insistent and somewhat irritated.

"You better go. Unless, you know, you just want some of this." Dean gestured vaguely toward his waist, a bit of the old sadistic gleam finding its way back into his eyes.

"He wouldn't."

"Samuel Allen Winchester! Do not make me come looking for you!"

Dean raised his eyebrows. "Care to lay money on that?"

Sam opened his mouth, snapped it closed as his eyes widened, and he turned and bolted from the room like a scared rabbit.

Dean chuckled and shook his head, thinking that, for as smart as Sam was supposed to be, he was playing with fire, and if he had by some minor magic managed not to learn anything from the scene he'd witnessed earlier, he was going to get himself burned. Dean turned a little too far over on his side and his breath caught in his throat. Yeah, kinda like that.

But he did have to admit that the look on Sam's face when their father had pulled out the full name might almost have been worth it. He shifted again.

Nope. Not even close.

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End file.
